"The Effects of Sin" Sermon: Genesis 3:14-24

“The Effects of Sin”
[Genesis 3:14-24]
September 28. 2008 Second Reformed Church

What is “Original Sin”? Not, what was the first sin, but what do we mean when we say that all humans are born with “Original Sin”? Most Americans answer this question incorrectly – most Americans say that “Original Sin” is the “eating of the apple” or, perhaps, sex. But that’s not what we mean by “Original Sin.” When we say all humans are born with “Original Sin,” we do not mean the sin of our first parents, we mean the effects of that sin. “Original Sin” is not the sin that Adam and Eve committed, but the effects that sin has on us.

God created Adam and Eve, sinless, and told them to obey – to live and love and tend the Garden, but not to eat of the fruit of the one tree, lest they die. The devil possessed the serpent and convinced Eve – he tricked her – into eating the fruit. Eve offered the fruit to Adam, and Adam turned his back on God and followed Eve into sin.

Then, as we saw last week, God came to Adam and Eve and asked them what they had done – not because God didn’t know. God knew exactly what they had done, and we will see it was all part of God’s Plan. But God confronted Adam and Eve – and God confronts us with our sin – to get them to recognize that they had sinned, to get them to confess their sin and repent of it, that they might receive God’s Forgiveness. But that was not to be the case – not yet. Eve blamed God for giving the serpent the gift of cunning speech. And Adam blamed God for giving him Eve. “God, You want to know why we sinned – look in the mirror! ” They followed the example of Satan and filled themselves with pride against God, refusing to repent in that moment.

And then God gave them justice, right? “For the wages of sin is death...” (Romans 6:23a, ESV). God smote them dead, right? No. Their were effects of their sin – effects that continue to affect us all – they were our representatives, and we have inherited “Original Sin” – the effects of sin. But we also see, in the second half of chapter three, promise, mercy, and hope.

God turned to the serpent – to the actual creature himself – and cursed him by making him the lowest of creatures, by no longer allowing him to walk upright, but making him to crawl on his belly for the rest of his existence. So, every serpent ever born has crawled on his belly, eating the dust, being an abhorrence to humans generally.

And we might say, “That’s not fair – the serpent was possessed. Why did God punish the actual creature when it wasn’t his fault?” We remember that the animals were created for humans, so, perhaps the best we can say is that in harming humanity, some punishment had to occur, even if the serpent did not invite his possession by Satan.

Then, in verse fifteen, God turns to the devil, himself, and God curses the devil. God promises that there will be enmity – strife – between the woman and her offspring – her seed – forever. Ever human being born would be at war with Satan from that day forward. The devil was on notice that the human race was called to take up arms against the devil. And, the devil will lose. God declares the devil fallen, defeated, and finished in the promise that God makes, which theologians call the prototevangelion – the “first gospel” – “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

God changes from the plural, “seed” to the singular, “he.” One will come, God promises, Who will be hurt by the devil – His “heel” shall be struck by the devil, but this One will crush the “head” of the devil. The devil will cause a devastating blow against this Son of Eve, but He will destroy all hope the devil had. The author of Hebrews explains, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Jesus] himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15, ESV).

God tells them that the devil will be allowed to wage war with humanity, and the devil will cause pain and suffering, even to the Chosen One of God. But when the Chosen One comes, He will – through death – destroy death and the power of the devil and deliver all those who believe in Him from the devil and his wickedness. This is the Promise of the Coming and Victory of Jesus. How gracious of God, in the very moment of our first parents’ sin to give them this sure hope! That promise remains for us until Jesus’ Return, as Paul wrote, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (Romans 16:20, ESV).

Such were the effects of sin for the serpent and the devil, but there were and are effects for us, humans, as well:

God turned to Eve and told her that the effect of her sin would be two-fold on womankind: First, the pain she would experience in childbirth would be multiplied. Let us understand this: There would have been pain in childbirth. I have heard people say that there was no pain in childbirth until after the Fall – after our first parents’ sin. But that’s not what the text tells us. What God says is that the pain of childbirth will be worse – it will be greater – that it was due to sin. Why? The Scripture does not say, but we might hazard the guess that the pain of childbirth, of bringing a new human being into the world bearing “Original Sin,” a person born a sinner, inclined towards sin, is an everlasting reminder of what happened in the Garden.

Second, God says that from that day forward “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Take a deep breath. What is God saying? Paul explained: “But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of the wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God” (I Corinthians 11:3, ESV). “For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (I Timothy 2:13-14, ESV). Here, and elsewhere, we find that the spiritual leader of the family is to be the husband. God has gifted men and women in many ways the same. The Scriptural example of work and finances is that, usually, the men work and the women manage and spend the money. And so forth. But only women give birth, and men are to be the spiritual leaders of the household.

“Well, my husband is a spiritual moron. Do I have to follow his spiritual leadership?” It is true, there are times when women are far more spiritual, faithful, godly, etc., than their husbands. What would the right thing be to do – to make sure your husband knows what a spiritual lightweight he is, or to do everything within your God-given giftedness to humbly lead him into greater spiritual maturity? The “battle between the sexes” is part of the effects of sin – remember, men and women were created to complete each other and cause each other joy and fulfillment in all human ways. God is not saying that men are naturally more spiritual than women; He is saying part of the punishment for sin is that, rather than working together in mutuality in the things of the Spirit, there is now a hierarchy.

Adam – men – receive a three-fold condemnation which not only effects men, but the entire Creation: First, God tells Adam that since he listened to Eve rather than God, God was plunging the entire Creation into disorder and pain. The ground will not longer be easy to work, but work will be painful, difficult. Work will cause sweat, it will be unfulfilling, it will not always work out well.

The second or flip-side is that the Creation finds it more difficult to survive, thorns and thistles – which had not existed – now appear as defense mechanisms for the creation. The animals will soon turn on each other, no longer living in harmony, but wary and, even, malicious towards one another. John Calvin describes what happened to the Creation and our relation to it with these words, “henceforth life will be miserable” (Commentary on Genesis, 106, re:3:17ff).

Paul wrote, “For the creation was not subjected to futility willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope, that the creation will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:20-23, ESV).

And then God answered the question that was surely on their minds, “You promised death the day we ate of the fruit of the tree. Shall we die?” And God told him, yes, because of their sin, humans would die – they would return to the dust from which they came – but that is not the death they would die that day. No, Adam lived to a ripe, old age of 930. It was not physical death that they died that day; it was spiritual death. This is the primary and most horrific of the effects of sin.

Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned – for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come” (Romans 5:12-14, ESV).

The primary meaning of “Original Sin” – of the effects of our first parents’ sin – is that all humans are born sinners. We are all born guilty. We are all born inclined towards sin, desiring sin above God. As Paul explained to the Ephesians, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3, ESV).

Still, we remember that God made a promise to Adam and Eve – that one day, One would be born to deliver humans from death. But that was the future, let us see that in their day, God showed Adam and Eve mercy:

God showed them mercy in three ways:

First, He did not kill them on the spot. God could have killed them immediately for their sin, but God chose to show mercy according to His Plan and allow them to live, to come to repentance, and find forgiveness in the Promise Who was to come.

Second, God shed blood for Adam and Eve, because of their sin, in taking animals, putting them to death, removing their skins, and fashioning them into clothes for them. God covered their nakedness, which had become an embarrassment to them through sin, and He did so through the shedding of blood. Surely, this is symbolic of the Blood that would have to be shed by Jesus to cover their – and our – sin.

Third, God banished them from Eden. This was an act of mercy in that God kept them from the tree of life, which, one could surmise, would have kept them damned in their sin if they ate of it. God instead sent them forth to cope with the effects of their sin for themselves and all of humanity. God sent them forth with the Promise Who would one day come. And God sent them forth, clothed with blood symbolizing that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22).

From these things we can discern their infant hope: there is Salvation in Jesus Christ Alone. Paul continued in Ephesians, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even while we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have ben saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a results of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:4-10, ESV).

All humans are born with “Original Sin” – we are all born effected by sin – our lives will be hard, our bodies fall apart, and we are born spiritually dead, sinners, unable to help or save ourselves. But thanks be to God, God made and kept His Promise to send Jesus to save all those who would believe in Him Alone for their salvation. He is our hope.

Paul wrote, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom of God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ... When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and mortality puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (I Corinthians 15:22-26; 54-58, ESV).

Our Hope is that Jesus the Victorious is coming back to set all things right. Let us keep that Hope before us. And let us tell the world that death is conquered, salvation is available in Jesus Alone, the Creation will be freed from its suffering, and Jesus reigns now, with truth and grace, to the glories of His Righteousness and the wonders of His Love.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, our first parents sinned as our representatives, and we and all Creation suffer because of their and our continuing sin. Help us to understand that we are all born dead in our sin, with Only One Hope of Salvation. Replace our hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. Let us care for all those perishing, and cause us to reach out with the Truth of Your Gospel. And may You be pleased to save many people for Yourself. And may You receive all the Glory, for it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.